I'm kinda overwhelmed by having to email about this week. If you couldn't tell by the email subject... a lot of random stuff happened. Fortunately, a lot of awesome lessons with awesome people did, too!

After our P-day ended, we had a great lesson with a recent convert and his wife and their little baby. He was baptized the week or two before I got here. And he's in a screamo band. He's seriously the coolest guy ever. Aside from his long black dreads, you'd never guess that's what he did cause he is a really sweet, softspoken guy. He has all kinds of connections in the music industry, from Evanescence (who apparently has some bandmembers that live in this area??) to Pit Bull's photographer haha. So it was pretty cool hearing about all that.

On Tuesday, we did an exchange in Pinnacle Mountain/downtown Little Rock. I went with Elder Murdoch there. They share an apartment with the Assistants to the President, so that was fun. They gave us a ride or two and saved us from an hour of biking at least, so I was very thankful for that. We spent a lot of time finding, and met our first of two 90+ year old 7th Day Adventists. One was like, "I don't want to get to the other side, and have God scold me and tell me I can't get to heaven because I worshipped him on the 1st day instead of the 7th." Don't get me wrong, they were both super nice, strong, faithful followers of Christ and so I respect them, but... I dunno, doesn't that just sound not right? You really think God is gonna review your checklist and then kick you out cause you worshipped Him on the wrong day?

Anyway. After talking with a black guy playing gangster rap from a speaker taped to the handlebars of a princess bicycle meant for a 10 year old girl, we stopped to talk with an older lady who was sitting on her porch with a flyswatter. She said she'd accept a card, and we had a great visit with her. We read Moroni 10:3-5 with her, and she caught the spirit of it instantly. She kept reading, and reading, and then had to stop herself so we could actually talk about it! She kept saying how amazing it was, and E. Murdoch invited her to be baptized right there on the spot. She said she'd been baptized already, and our explanation didn't get through to her, but apparently they were able to see her again and had another good visit!

The next morning, the APs made some scrambled duck eggs for breakfast before driving up to North Little Rock for zone conference. It was wonderful as usual. They held the last portion of it after diving the elders and sisters into two groups. We spent some time polishing each other's shoes. Mine definitely needed it hahaha. I didn't feel as bad when Pres. Hansen confessed that the first time he had polished his shoes since being out here was the night before haha.

Back in Benton the next day, we had a lot of good visits! One with our second 90+ year old 7th Day Adventist, who was really sweet but just as stubborn. We were invited in by another lady who just treated us like her personal psychiatrists and told us all kinds of family drama, and we promised blessings from the Book of Mormon. It was a long, but good visit. And finally, we also visited with one of the two ladies that had joked about chasing us away with a broom last week. She asked for another Book of Mormon to give to a coworker, and had some great questions! We are excited about her!

Had kind of a harder day the next day, but it was still good. We had a lesson with a guy who has been meeting with the missionaries for a while, now. Elder Bolos explained how we teach him well when he said, "We basically just Bible Bash with him and he just accepts everything we say after we show it to him in the Bible." So, rest assured there isn't any arguing eith him, he just has a question or concern and we show him a zillion scriptures in the Bible to answer it. He'll sit back and try to come up with something else, but as he is asking it, he will remember what we said and answer his own question. He's pretty fun to teach haha. You can tell gears are turning.

That night, a member called us and said they had a ton of leftover pot roast and were wondering if they could give it to us. Um... yes! It was really good. We had pot roast bbq sandwiches for lunch the next 3 days haha. It was a definite blessing.

They say fall is getting close. But. It was pretty hot on Saturday when we tried to find some new people to teach. Can't wait for it to cool down. Sweaty tracting is always a blast.

We were invited to a wedding reception of a member, and that was about as awkward for two random missionaries to walk in to as you'd expect, but there were yummy desserts, and a couple of the family's work friends we were able to visit with, so it ended up being good.

Sunday was crazy cause we had like 5 or 6 appointments planned that could each take a while. We were worried we would have to miss some of them cause we were so busy, but we managed to at least give everyone a chance! A few didn't work out, and we cleared out our teaching pool a little bit. :/ But a few did and they were good.

The "chase us off with a broom" lady agreed to meet us at 6 that evening. When we got there, we didn't have another guy with us so we couldn't go in her home. So she woke up one of her neighbors and asked for him to come join us so we could get out of the heat. She opened up about the death of her son a few years ago which was really sad. Things went kinda downhill, though, cause there were just a lot of distractions going on and people walking in and out, phones ringing, baby screaming, breast feeding happening... So this lesson plan we'd been stressing out about didn't go through at all.

Fortunately, her 9 year old daughter loves church and Jesus and she was the most attentive of them all. She reminds me of my younger sisters and just has this glow about her despite the kind of negative home life. She ate up everything we said and was excited about the Book of Mormon. It was just so neat to see her faith and excitement, that one book about Jesus was good, so two must be better! I hope for the very very best for that girl.

Got home and had our weekly phone calls with the missionaries in our Zone. Lots of awesome miracles happening all over the place, ahh!! There are too many things going on to even consider any of this as coincidence. This is the Lord's work! I'm so lucky and blessed to be a part of it.

I can't believe September is around the corner! September is gonna be a dang good month. Here's to finishing up August the best we can!

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Serving A Mission!

What's all this about? As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, it is expected of me that I will serve a two-year mission. (And yeah, the "riding bikes and wearing nametags and knocking on doors" kind of mission.) But this isn't something I'm doing because it's expected of me... I'm doing this because the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ has blessed my life SO much, in SO many ways. I can't think of a greater honor or responsibility than being able to play a part in someone's story of finding and enjoying these blessings, too.